Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18 Commentary

Across its somewhat sprawling 52 verses, Psalm 89 has a little bit of everything.  We begin with the first 4 verses assigned by this Year A lection with vows to praise God across the generations (something we will read again next week in Psalm 145).  Then there is a whole section on the splendors of the physical creation that God rules and superintends.  Then in verses 15-18 that the Lectionary also picks up this week there are more vows to praise God even as God will respond by blessing his people mightily.  Next up is a long section on God’s chosen servant David, the promises God made to David but also a series of warnings in case David’s heirs do not follow God’s ways.  And since they did not, there is a section on God’s disfavor toward those people.  Finally at the very end of the song we veer into a miniature Psalm of Lament prior to a very brief closing burst of doxology.

So, a little bit of everything here.

One of the hallmarks of the psalms is the idea that it is both a delight and an honor to know enough to praise the one true God of Israel.  It’s a blessing to give God blessings of worship.  Blessing leads to blessings.  In verse 15 we are told that people are blessed after they “learn” to praise God.  Here is something we may not reflect on very often: proper worship is something you need to learn to do (you learn both the how and the why of worship presumably).  Probably were it not for the noetic effects of sin that blind us to the glory of God all around us, we would praise God as a matter of course.  We’d praise God automatically.  It would be like breathing or respiration: you never think about needing to keep taking breaths—your body just does it.  It is automatic and autonomic.  All things being equal, probably praise of God should be spiritually autonomic.

But in a fallen world it isn’t of course.  Instead you have to learn how to do it.  You have to be educated as to why it is only fitting to praise God at all times and find yourself strengthened as a result.  Maybe there is an analogy to how children need to learn their proverbial P’s and Q’s.  Children appear not to be prone all on their own to say please or thank you.  Babies who scream for milk are not being polite about the desire to satisfy their need.  And though their falling to sleep once their tummy is full is nice, it’s a far cry from the infant’s saying “Thank you” to Mom or Dad.  A child eventually has to learn that it’s not civilized forever and only to demand what you want—you need to ask for it nicely.  Say “Please.”  And in order not to come off as some entitled and ungrateful brute, the child also needs to say “Thank you” to show that what they got may or may not have been deserved per se but it is deeply appreciated.  “Much obliged” as an older way of expressing gratitude put it.

So we learn to praise God.  We learn to see the natural world as God’s handiwork and we say “Thank you” for the gift of the neon orange Northern Orioles that I am seeing eat the grape jelly at my bird feeders as I type this.  We learn that gorgeous sunsets are finally more than a spinning planet temporarily rolling away from having line of sight to see the sun but instead we learn to see the blazing riot of colors of a sunset as a beautiful gift of God.  We learn that the food set before us comes finally from the hands of God’s providence and so we pause long enough to whisper “Thanks” for a cheeseburger.

And it’s a blessing to be so educated.  It’s the right frame of mind, the proper posture to assume as we find ourselves immersed much of the time in a sea of God’s gracious provisions.  Just as we prefer the company of polite people to that of the proverbial spoiled brats of the world who take and consume wantonly and rudely in ways a lot of us find boorish, so also God prefers the company of those who know enough to worship.  Praise and thanksgiving and minding your divine manners is (as Scripture routinely notes) in the end merely fitting.

But this is also why engaging regularly in the rhythms of public worship is so important.  At the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (a partner agency at Calvin University and Seminary with the Center for Excellence in Preaching) we have long framed up worship as both expressive and formative.  The expressive part tends to get more attention.  We go to worship to sing, to pray, to lift up hands and voices to express the gratitude, joy, and reverence we feel in our hearts.  We let it all out, as it were.  The expressive side of worship is what anyone looking in through a church window during a worship service would see happening.  People singing, swaying, lifting up hands, dancing maybe in some traditions.  Worship is expressive.

Such an observer would not be able to witness the formative aspect of worship however.  This is what is going on in the hearts and minds of the worshipers.  Thoughtfully written and performed songs and music are forming in us the vocabulary and style by which to thank God.  Listening to carefully composed prayers is part of the ongoing education of praise as we learn what capacious and pious prayers sound like.  Listening to sermons that engage deeply with the Word of God but that also delve deeply into the concrete lived experience of those in attendance are training people to see how God’s living Word molds and shapes them into disciples of Jesus Christ.

Expression in worship is vital.  But so is formation in worship.  If Psalm 89 reminds us that we have to learn how to be worshipful people of praise, then our weekly times of worship become part of our being lifelong learners.

Illustration Idea

Author Marilynne Robinson loves lawn sprinklers.  Why?  Because sprinklers expose water droplets to sunlight and when that happens, you begin to see rainbow colors as the sunlight refracted through each drop of water scatter along the visible light spectrum from red to violet with oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and indigoes in between (the old “Roy G. Biv” mnemonic device for remembering the colors expressed through prisms).  This reminds us, Robinson notes, of what John Calvin observed: the physical creation is the theater of God’s glory and it is all around us at all times if only we train our eyes to see it.  Each water droplet is a cathedral.

Robinson’s way of looking at sprinkler water and seeing all that is not necessarily something you’d tumble upon immediately.  You have to learn to see the world that way.  But once you do, it’s a glorious and blessed sight indeed!